A Language of Exposures (my exhibit review)

 -Above is a photograph I took at the Wallspace Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. This piece titled, The Man in the White Hat Dropped It, was part of the Shannon Ebner exhibition, A Language of Exposures. Ebner is an artist working from Los Angeles who has an interest in photography and how it can address space outside of their frames as well as generate symbolic visuals. The whole gallery consisted of 7 complete pieces; 1 being a type of video that flashed through a number of photographs (of rotating human torso), and the others being a mix of framed objects to photographs. The work is spaced sporadically throughout the gallery, and 1 piece being in a separate room completely isolated from the rest. The piece above with the letters is what the viewer first notices when they enter into the gallery. When approaching this piece, you want to read it right away however, it is not so easy. The way that Ebner put it together is not how we are used to. There are no clear spacing between each words, they aren't put together correctly, the sentences and words are divided strangely between the frame themselves and the frames that proceed them. All of this makes it harder to read and it is as if we have to decode the message for a couple minutes and then go back and think about what it just said. Ebner seems to find these letters or words out in the world and then using them to create some type of her own language, in which isn't easily explainable. Moreover, the way she displays this new language is intriguing and makes the viewer want to figure out what she is trying to say, rather than just giving up. Her other pieces in the exhibit include photographs of tools from auto-body shops. In these, she seems to be adding to her creation of language as well, although it is not as obvious as the piece above. Below are some more photographs I took of the work at the gallery.